July 2013 Archives

Today I’m starting a new article series here on Around The World Travels. It’s a way to motivate both myself and you, my readers. I’m going to offer you wallpapers, beautiful pictures that should help you towards your goal of making more room in your life for traveling.

Fiji is the first topic of this series, and I’ll probably continue to select different topics and focus solely on them in the future. I might do another tropical island next, or I might choose some Paris wallpapers.

Next, we have another image from Fiji, a beach wallpaper, which was shot during the night. That’s the kind of view you can expect to have if you go during your honeymoon to Fiji.

And the last image for the day, a picture of the bungalows you can expect to rent in Fiji. Right near the beach, and gorgeous.

You want a nice hotel room, and you want it cheap. Two opposite ideas? Not really. The most important thing to remember when finding hotel rooms is this: an empty room means loss of profit to a hotel owner.

When a room is empty, the hotel owner still has to pay to heat/cool it. Still has to pay for the maid to be at the Hotel for eight hours. The owner’s expenses stay almost the same whether the room is empty or full. For this reason, you can get a hotel room cheap if you are able to play the game.

We’ll hopefully go over some less intense methods later, but for now remember that you can walk away and if you do the Hotel loses. They need you to stay in their room more than you need the room.

I visited a city where I needed hotel. I stopped in a nice place and said, “I checked with the <other hotel> down the street… they were $48 a night. I’d rather stay here, ’cause I like your place but honestly I can’t justify it if you can’t get me close to that rate.” Then I shut up. Didn’t say another word for about five minutes, while the attendant talk and talked. At first, they said, my idea was ridiculous. Then they admitted the other hotel was cheaper… $100/night is expensive. Pretty soon they told me, “I do have better rates… $70/night.” … keep waiting. Pretty soon the attendant is desperately doing anything she could to find better rates because my silence told her she was losing. How fun!If you can wait until the day you need the room simply show up and follow these steps:

Check the local rates for hotels that are acceptable, but definitely cheaper than where you want to stay.

Ask for the best rate possible explaining the other Hotel’s price but that “I prefer to stay here, but I can’t justify the price when there is a Hotel right there for cheaper.”

Be quiet.

Listen… but stay quiet.

If they aren’t budging at all, take a step away from the desk and say, “Well, I wish I could but… actually, can you check one more time see if there is any way to do $XX/night? Maybe call the manager, ’cause you are doing great, but I know they can fudge the price a little more.”

Be quiet

Wait

Be willing to walk away

That’s it. Follow those eight simple steps and 90% of the time you’ll get a better rate than you could’ve online!